Brandeis Alumni Art Tour

I had the opportunity to take a group of 15 Brandeis University alumni on an art tour of Chelsea and the High Line. The group dynamic was quite unique- some people were in their early 20s and others were in their late 70s. As I planned for the tour, I wanted to make sure that I somehow made it accessible and approachable to a wide audience so as not to just appeal to one age bracket. I chose to start at Mitchell- Innes & Nash, a gallery on 26^th street who were showcasing the works of the classic Pop artist Roy Lichtenstein (interesting to note, they are the gallery who manage the artist’s estate). The show, titled Reflections, featured 16 works on canvas and 5 preparatory drawings from the 1980s and 90s. Just a side note, Lichtenstein is probably most well known for his figural comic book renditions with talking bubbles from the 1960s.

We began by discussing a few key elements of Lichtenstein’s signature style, and moved into a conversation about the works on paper. The tour culminated with an examination of 4 of the paintings. The work that I personally found the most interesting, titled Interior with Perfect Painting from 1992, clearly embodied the show’s title. It possessed all of Lichtenstein’s iconic stylistic elements- Benday dots, hardedge lines and primary colors, and represented a perfect mirror image, or, reflection. Just as an aside, a work very similar to this one exists in the collection of the Guggenheim museum titled Interior with Mirrored Wall from 1991. Unlike the example at Mitchell- Innes & Nash, which is a close-up detail of what appears to be a living room, the painting at the Guggenheim shows the room in its entirety; however, the positioning of the mirror and the contents of its reflections are largely the same as the gallery example.


We then moved onto Gagosian, a staple of Chelsea. There, we saw the works of an up-and-coming artist named Dan Colen, born in New Jersey in 1979. Amazingly, at just 31 years old, Colen has already participated in the 2006 Whitney Biennial in New York. The show at Gagosian, titled Poetry, was his first solo show in the city but his third time exhibiting at Gagosian- the first time, also in 2006, his paintings hung in the bathroom of the gallery. That’s right, the bathroom! Before we discussed all three of his paintings (the rest of the show was dedicated to sculpture) I pointed out their commonalities: each work was a white primed, unframed, horizontal, large formatted (one side of each was 102 inches) canvas that employed extremely bold colors; however, each piece was unique for its paint application and textural quality. These works appealed to a variety of our senses, sight being the most obvious. Even though we couldn’t reach out and feel them, the rich layering of paint and three- dimensional quality were so descriptive it was as if our eyes did the touching for us. They also appealed to our sense of smell. Instead of paint, Colen used bubble gum that he emulsified with hot water. He spread his pigments over the canvas in an almost abstract expressionist like manner. You have to give him credit for originality. What contemporary artists love to do is challenge the norm and anything traditional. Clearly Colen thought outside the box when he decided to emulsify bubble gum and transform it into a painting medium. When I first discovered that these works were made of gum, it got me thinking about other contemporary artists who have taken materials outside of context to use in art making. The name Chris Ofili came to my mind (and to the mind of one of my tour- goers, which I found really impressive). He is a British painter of Nigerian descent who made quite a name for himself in the 1990s. He decided to use elephant dung on a painting he created of the Virgin Mary exhibited at the Brooklyn Museum in 1999. Unlike Colen and his gum, however, Ofili’s unorthodox approach is probably considered one of the most controversial incidents to ever grace in the artworld.

Lastly we visited the Zach Feuer Gallery, which hosted a solo exhibition for a German contemporary artist named Anton Henning. During my initial walk-through of the show, I was fortunate enough to meet the artist. At first glance, I found that many of the pieces were highly reminiscent of works by Monet, Van Gogh and Picasso. I thought it was wonderful how Henning could display his mastery of several different painting styles in one exhibition. When I spoke Henning, I asked him if he would admit that he consciously emulated these artists (some living artists are very touchy when you insinuate that they seek inspiration from art historical masters). He said and I quote, “Yes, I will admit it. It’s about memory of quality. What you’ve seen inspires you. Van Gogh… he wasn’t a bad painter.” Clearly, while Henning drew inspiration from these great masters, he imbued his works with his own sense of style. One of his portraits really struck me. It was in a cubist style, but as I just mentioned, with his own flare. For example, the traditional muted cubist color palette had been altered to include pastel tones. It seemed that Henning deliberately created a strong contrast between the color palette of the figure and that of the background. We see the iconic half shapes and cubist features of the body but they appear a bit more graphic and scientific than Picasso or Georges Braque ever depicted them. As I was beginning my notes on this piece, a little girl walked up to it with her mother and said out loud, “that looks like Picasso!” I was stunned. I couldn’t help but ask her how old she was- she answered 7. She said that she has a friend whose mothers is an artist so she often goes to museums with them. Only in New York!

We finished the tour off with a walk to the High Line, which originated in the 1930s but underwent a transformation in June 2009. Although Chelsea is home to the newest and boldest works of art created today, there’s nothing like talking a bit about good old fashioned New York City history to put it all in perspective.